Polonius Slyme was evidently puzzled. He looked cautiously, suspiciously, at the face of the other, as if trying to understand him.
"I have tried to do your lordship's will," he ventured.
"Yes, and on the whole I'm satisfied with what you've done. Yes, what is it?"
"If your lordship would deign to trust me," he said.
"Trust you? In what way?"
"If you would tell me what is in your mind, I could serve you better," he asserted, with a nervous laugh. "All the time I have been acting in the dark. I don't understand your lordship."
The Count smiled as though he were pleased.
"What do you want to know?" he asked.
"I am very bold, I know, and doubtless I am not worthy to have the confidence of one so great and so wise as your lordship. But I have tried to be worthy, I have worked night and day for you—not for the wages, liberal though they are, but solely for the purpose of being useful to you. And I could, I am sure, be more useful if I knew your mind, if I knew exactly what you wanted. I am sure of this: if I knew your purposes in relation to Faversham, if I knew what you wanted to do with him, I could serve you better."
The Count looked at Slyme steadily for some seconds.